Computers have become increasingly commonplace in our world and offer a variety of different functionality. Some computers are designed primarily for individual use, while others are designed primarily to be accessed by multiple users and/or multiple other computers concurrently. These different functionalities are realized by the use of different hardware components as well as different software applications that are installed on the computers.
Although the variety of available computer functionality and software applications is a tremendous benefit to the end users of the computers, such a wide variety can be problematic for the developers of the software applications as well as system administrators that are tasked with keeping computers running. Such problems can arise, for example, because of differences in configurations or settings that are required by different software applications that a user may try to install on the same computer. Situations can arise where the settings required by one software application cause another software application to malfunction. By way of another example, situations can arise where two software applications have conflicting requirements on how the operating system on the computer should be configured. Such situations can cause one or both of the software applications, and possibly additional applications, to operate incorrectly if both are installed concurrently.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved way to install software applications on computers.